Peter Dutton ‘saved diligently’ before he bought his first home at 19. But his advice for first homebuyers has rung hollow for millions of young Aussies

Peter Dutton says saving to buy a home at age 19 was one of his ‘proudest achievements’ but has been met with derision by young Australians who doubt they will ever be able to afford a home.

‘I have saved diligently over those years and it allowed me to put together a deposit for a house, and I bought my first home at age 19,’ the opposition leader said. 

The opposition leader, who polls suggest could become prime minister at the upcoming election added that it was ‘one of my proudest achievements’.

While that won rapturous applause from the Liberal Party faithful at a campaign event in Melbourne, others said his comments were ‘out of touch’ with the current reality in which Australia has some of the most expensive housing in the world.

‘I’m going to talk you through his number set and tell you why it’s impossible to do today what he did then,’ investment analyst Rachel Cole said in a video on her Get Rich With Rach TikTok channel.

She compared figures from 1990 – when Mr Dutton was 19 – to those of today. 

Back then, a two-bedroom unit in Brisbane cost $93,000, meaning a deposit after stamp duty of $10,230 was needed. 

When the then $7,000 first homeowner grant was added in, Mr Dutton would have had to save just $3,230 of his own savings to put down a deposit on a unit, Ms Cole claimed. 

As a first year police officer, Mr Dutton would have been earning around $17,000 a year after tax, meaning he needed to save 19 per cent of one year’s income to put together that deposit.

His 90 per cent mortgage would have been just 3.6 times his salary.

In 2025, the same average unit costs $674,000, which would require a deposit of $93,012, or $67,400 after government grants.

The same first year police officer today would take home $44,792 after tax, meaning they would have to save 150 per cent of their annual income for a deposit.

‘What that means is you have to save seven times as much today as Peter Dutton had to save,’ Ms Cole revealed. 

‘But that’s just the deposit. That’s the first of your worries, not the biggest one.’

She then calculated that Mr Dutton would have had to borrow just $83,700, which she described as a ‘very safe’ loan that any bank would have made.

‘Today, that person has to borrow $606,600. That means this person is borrowing 8.8 times their salary to do the same deal,’ Ms Cole said. 

The analyst said even if ‘the banks would let you do that, which they won’t… the banks will only lend you five times your salary’. 

‘So even if you were the world’s most diligent saver, even if you managed to save that 10 per cent deposit in two years, you still couldn’t buy the property because the debt-to-income ratio is too high.’

She said that ratio was the ‘biggest problem’ for young people trying to get a foothold on the housing ladder in 2025. 

‘So whenever the governments are banging on it being a deposit issue, it’s really not, because even if you had the deposit you couldn’t get the loan anyway because the wages are too low relative to the prices,’ she said.

Ms Cole said she regularly hears politicians praising themselves for how they had the discipline to afford a home in contrast to the young generation who waste money spending on lifestyle items; the ‘avocado on toast’ argument. 

‘It does not matter how much avocado toast you give up because the bank’s not going to lend you 8.8 times your income anyway,’ she said.

Mr Dutton telling a Liberal Party audience about ‘how great he was for buying as a 19-year-old without any recognition of a completely different economic landscape to what people are dealing with today’ meant he was ‘in a different world’, Ms Cole said.

‘I wish every politician who was born before 1980 could understand this.’

Followers thanked the analyst for her calculations. 

‘Please send this straight to Dutton,’ one wrote. ‘I’m sick of how out of touch politicians are. All it takes to understand is some simple maths’. 

‘I constantly have this argument with my parents. The banks physically will not lend me the amount we need to buy, regardless of how frugal we are,’ another said. 

‘Can I get a copy of this spreadsheet or a full screenshot? I need to save this for arguments I’m gonna have in the next few months,’ a third commented. 

But some people backed Mr Dutton’s approach to home ownership, with one writing ‘I also bought my first home at 19 in 2023. It’s doable.’

Another said their son ‘just bought his first home at 19. No assistance from mum or dad. It is still possible.’ 

Mr Dutton has sold off a property portfolio worth around $12million since 2020.

According to his disclosure to Parliament, Mr Dutton currently owns just one property, a farm in Dayboro, north of Brisbane that he paid $2.165million for in 2020.